Week 15: Baked Alaska (The End)

Hi everyone!

A poorly drawn map of
Australia crying because
Matt didn't win

I’ve been betrayed. Our great nation has been betrayed. MasterChef has broken my heart, and judging by Facebook and Instagram comments, the hearts of many other Australians. Matt was robbed. Robbed by some stupid, bloody, fancy pants egg. He is literally the new Poh… and I will never, I repeat, never, forgive network ten for this travesty.

Anyway, this is my last post! I’ve actually had my final dish in mind for a good few weeks now. Surprise, it’s the Baked Alaska! It's generally agreed upon that the Baked Alaska is one of the needlessly difficult dishes out there. I can attest to that. I was really, really hoping my last dish would go swimmingly. But like Matt Sinclair’s, my dreams were crushed. And I’m don’t mean they were slightly shaken about, I mean that they were absolutely shattered.

Frozen Elements: Sorbet and ice cream

Why do I do this to myself?

I lounged about all morning, before reading the recipe at approximately 11 o’clock. This, my friends, was the beginning of a marathon-length nightmare. The recipe summary promised 1 hour and 35 minutes cooking time ‘plus cooling and freezing’. I thought, sweet, that’s probably around 5 hours in total, what a walk in the park. Alas, subtly buried in the recipe, as a sort of afterthought, it was stated that it must set for 'at least 8 hrs'. EIGHT HOURS. Excluding ice cream and sorbet setting time! Needless to say, many rude words were flung around, as I entered extreme panic mode. You see, I couldn’t simply make it tomorrow. My mum’s BFF was coming over specifically to sample my baked goods. 

Thankfully, my first ever attempts of sorbet and ice cream were a reasonable success.

The sorbet was orange juice and sugar, infused with star anise. The aniseed flavour was a little overpowering, but I'm blaming the recipe for that shortcoming. In my mad frenzy I forgot to add the orange marmalade to the orange ice cream, but it was still utterly delish! 

Chocolate cake dome

Yeah look, I'll be the first to admit she ain't pretty

This went a little less well. It turns out that the baking tin I used wasn’t quite large enough, meaning that there wasn’t quite enough cake to build a base for my Baked Alaska. 

The dome is meant to be constructed in a pudding dish. Does anyone in Australia have a pudding dish? Instead, I used a normal bowl. Consequently, constructing the cake dome was an uphill battle. My tragic patchwork quilt of cake glued together with melted chocolate, can be seen on your right.

Assemblage (a.k.a. disaster)

Please set, please set, please set

Alrighty, I’m warning you, the following succession of events is an utter tragedy.

I let my Baked Alaska freeze for a few hours. It wasn’t the recommended 8, but trust me, I left it for as long as possible. The night ended with me furiously whisking meringue during the commercial breaks of the MasterChef finale. What can I say?My reputation for being the most frustratingly last minute person on Earth is well deserved.

Once I slapped the meringue onto the dome, it actually looked quite pretty. However, the icecream and sorbet inside my cake dome weren’t rock solid and it had no cake base. I was iffy about putting it in the oven for ten whole minutes, so my step sister advised me to use the grill, because it would cook the meringue quicker.

I took my eyes off it for like 20 seconds, and suddenly the entire top was burnt to a blackened crisp.

I’d lost all will to live.

But, hold on, it gets worse.

Somehow, I dropped my Baked Alaska.

I bloody dropped it.

I don’t know what happened, but it slipped from my grasp, and onto the open oven door.

I won’t lie, I almost cried. I could feel the tears behind my beedy eyes.

But instead of bawling, I chose to laugh hysterically, as my mother and her best friend tried to comfort me.

Before and after I died of a broken heart

Ranking rubric

Mum & Li, my two biggest fans,
apart from maybe Chelsea Wilson

Taste: 7/10- since the aniseedy sorbet melted into non existence, the icecream + cake combo was quite yummy

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 1/10- need I say more?

Time: 2/10- This is the closest I think I'll ever feel to being in a Pressure Test. I just didn't have enough time. I did achieve a lot in the time frame though

Kitchen Mess: 2/10- it was a lowkey bombsite chez moi

So yeah, my final attempt at being MasterChef worthy, well and truly backfired. At the end of these past few months, I can confidently say that I am not MasterChef worthy (yet). Ah well, that’s life. It’s been a fun ride.

Thanks if you’re reading this, and I hope my failures have been somewhat entertaining to you.

Cheers,

Rosa  

Week 14: Parfait

Hi everyone!

If Matt doesn't win, I will cry.

Exciting news: I saw Matt, Gary and George in the flesh at Regional Flavours! And yes, those hours were the greatest of my life. Matt Sinclair was present as well. God, I wish that he wasn’t married and I was approximately fifteen years older. But what can I say, life is one long disappointment.

Anyway, woo it’s finals week, and I have an announcement to make. I’ve decided that as MasterChef comes to a close, so will my blog. Lately I’ve been so busy, and consequently inconsistent with my posts. This is my second last post, and rest assured I chose a tough cookie to bake!

In the past few seasons of MasterChef, parfaits seem to be terribly à la mode. I figured, what with nearing the end of this journey, I would test myself to see whether I’m MasterChef material. This week I attempted Elise’s Burnt Apricot Parfait, which has a bunch of fancy add ons.

Burnt Apricot Parfait

Somewhat inconveniently, apricots have disappeared off the face of the Earth. They aren’t in season, nor do they seem to be in any supermarket in metropolitan Brisbane. It looks like my chequered history of using the wrong ingredients and equipment is destined to go on until my dying day. Instead of ‘charring apricots on a griddle pan’, I was burning one peach and one nectarine in a fry pan. I guess some things never change.

Speaking of my unshakeable culinary habits, guess what? I overwhipped cream. Again. Additionally, I think I took my egg and sugar mixture (is that called an anglaise?) too far. In my defence, Elise, what the hell does ‘thick and pale’ actually mean? How thick do you want it? How pale? Vague recipe descriptors are actually ruining my life.

Man, who needs silicon moulds
when you have improvisation?

Since I didn’t have silicon, cylindrical moulds, I lined a cupcake tin with gladwrap to prevent stick-age. If that isn’t culinary resourcefulness, I don’t know what is. Unfortunately that stroke of genius didn’t make up for all my little cock ups. My parfaits’ texture was a little off, but at least they still tasted good.

Passionfruit Curd

These were reasonably fuss free, except that I didn’t have enough passionfruit juice. I think that affected how well it set. Ah well, worse things happen at sea. In fact, worse things happen in the MasterChef kitchen.

A note on setting time: Those blast chillers must be made out of magic. While the contestants set their frozen elements in an hour, my curds and parfaits were still runny at the three hour mark. I was forced to leave them in the freezer overnight.

Strawberry Coulis

For the first time in my life,
I don't have to blitz in batches.

What a triumph. Firstly, stewed strawberries, sugar and thyme are absolutely delish. Secondly, for the very first time, my inconveniently tiny food processor was the perfect size. After all these hellish months of making me split everything into batches, my food processor has found its true calling. Blitzing strawberry coulis- who’d have known?

Crumb

I am now head over heels in love with this ‘crumb’ trend. Dump butter + flour + sugar into the oven, and voilà, c’est finit. Tastewise, this crumb is minimal effort for maximum pleasure. Listen to me, I’m starting to sound like Nigella!

 

Forgive the melting curd. I reckon it looks pretty damn good.

Ranking rubric

With the lovely coulis

Taste: 8.7/10- other than the parfaits' odd texture, it tasted wonderful!

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 9.5/10- this is the proudest I’ve been of a dish’s appearance

Time: 8/10- not quite MasterChef’s 90 minutes. Minus setting time, I managed in roughly two and a half hours.

Kitchen Mess: 7/10- would've been worse, had mother dear not helped me clean up as I cooked.

So yeah, I'm not MasterChef ready, but there's no doubt that I've improved. My final post will probably be up soon after the grand final. 

Cheers,

Rosa

Week 13: Beef Wellington

Hi everyone!

Frankly, this week’s culinary undertaking was an absolute disaster. I never want to taste, see, or even think about a beef wellington ever again. As much as I'd love to blame a subpar recipe, Gordon’s instructions were pretty damn clear. Truth be told, my beef wellie was doomed before I even entered the kitchen.

It all started at Coles. The recipe asked for 1 kg of beef eye fillet, but my mum made it pretty clear that a 35 dollar hunk of meat wasn’t going to happen. So I settled with 1.1kg of blade roast, thinking it’s all beef, what could possibly go wrong?

The answer to that question is apparently: everything.

Pastry and duxelles

Before I recount the tragedies, why don’t we kick off with the positives?

Pastry: Gordon’s rough puff pastry recipe was a dream. It was similar to last week’s pastry, but this time I didn’t even have to whip out my wheezy old food processor!

Duxelles: What kind of pain in the ass decided that mushrooms had to be the consistency of ‘coarse breadcrumbs’? Thankfully, my 20 minutes spent finely chopping mushrooms was well worth it. Even though I used really, really old goon in the duxelle mixture, not a single family member of mine threw up. In my books, that’s a bloody solid win.

Beef

Right. This did not go well. This did not go well at all. In fact, talking about it makes my heart feel rather raw- much like my slab of beef. I wish I could travel back in time, and tell my past self: don’t be a stinge, listen to Gordon. Buy a bank breaking piece of meat. It’ll save you the tears.

Basically, wellingtons are meant to be cylindrical. My blade roast wasn’t even a shape that I could name; it was a twisted, polygon-like lump. When I laid it out on the prosciutto with the duxelles, it was quite clear that my wellie was not going to hold its shape. But oh well, I covered my mini disaster with the lovely pastry and shoved it into the oven.

A horrible photo of a truly
horrible dish

Appearances are so deceiving

When I took my wellie out of the oven, a glimmer of hope erupted within me. It's a miracle, I thought, it's like the tale of the ugly duckling! The utter ruin which entered the oven came out all golden brown and perfect! 

I spoke too soon. When I cut through the pastry, it looked like a slaughterhouse- there was so much damn blood. I know nothing about beef, but even I knew that I couldn’t pass that off as rare. Now, imagine eating a bleeding, leather boot. That's what this beef tasted like.

Ranking rubric

Taste: 3/10- to quote my step sister ‘everything but the meat was good’

Presentation/resemblance to dish: 5.5/10- before cutting: 9, after cutting: 2

Time: 3/10- this monstrosity was 3 hours in the making

Kitchen Mess: 8/10- Well at least the kitchen didn’t look to bad, ay?

Thanks for reading about my failures!

Cheers,

Rosa